Tour de France Stage 18 Predictions: 17/2 Cort or 80/1 Poels to continue our hot streak?

We’re nearly there! The 2024 Tour de France heads towards its final chapter after three absorbing weeks, with Thursday’s Stage 18 promising to offer something for the breakaway riders on the 179.5km from Gap to Barcelonnette (live from 11:30 BST on Eurosport 1, 14:00 BST on ITV4).

After a frantic day on Wednesday which saw various break attempts threaten to die down before Richard Carapaz’s counter eventually stuck for backers of this column to claim a 7/1 winner, Thursday sees an even greater opportunity for the stage-hunters. Here are my Tour de France Stage 18 predictions.

Tour de France Betting Odds

Wout van Aert is a big favourite with the odds-makers, with his chat on Wednesday about getting Visma-Lease a Bike a stage win at some point helping to pinpoint him as a 5/1 shot.

World road-race champion Mathieu van der Poel is next at 13/2, with Magnus Cort 17/2. Thereon there are a lot of riders with outside chances, such as Ben Healy at 14/1 one day on from his teammate’s win, and Michael Matthews at 20/1 as his Jayco AlUla team seek a second success following Dylan Groenewegen’s stage-six victory.

Cycling Odds

Carapaz’s triumph for EF Education-EasyPost on Wednesday was my ninth winner in 17 stages, with a couple of third-place finishes at 18/1 and 25/1 for Remco Evenepoel among our each-way selections.

Thursday might be a tougher day for predictions, with five Alpine climbs to negotiate but no higher mountains of the type we saw late on in the course between Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux and Superdevoluy 24 hours prior. That means this ought to be a day when the GC teams let the attacks go with a bit less fight than on Wednesday.

We saw with the countless attempts at getaways on stage 17 that there are a number of teams desperate to get a win before this Tour is over, and after Carapaz’s win there are still 11 organisations eager to get off the mark.

If Visma-Lease a Bike couldn’t find a way to drop Tadej Pogacar on Wednesday, they won’t on Thursday either, and as such the General Classification battle is destined to go down to the final three stages rather than hold any sway here.

That leaves the rest to battle it out, and this should see the likes of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Bahrain-Victorious and Ineos Grenadiers stake a claim.

Red Bull have Jai Hindley as their great hope, and having given up on the second break group on Wednesday the Australian could be fresh enough to be in amongst it this time around.

Bahrain-Victorious will believe Wout Poels can go again, with his efforts up to Superdevoluy having seen him tag on to the same group as Hindley and then stick around without ever looking likely to bridge the gap as Carapaz did to claim victory. Thursday may be his time.

Ineos need to believe that Laurens De Plus’ exertions in finishing fourth 24 hours ago won’t rule him out of contention, while Uno X-Mobility have an ace up their sleeve in Magnus Cort, who gave it a good go on stage 17 to finish seventh but who the parcours on Thursday should suit better.

Magnus Cort @ 17/2

Van Aert is a great shout for favourite, but even at 5/1 I think there’s probably better value out there. Sure, this is a stage that should suit the Belgian, but he’s just not at the level on this Tour that I might have expected.

So I’m going to go with Cort for the win, with his performances in stages 13 and 14 in the Pyrenees showing that he’s happy to commit to breakaway on back-to-back days.

He’s got enough strings to his bow to see him through the Cat 3 climbs, the descents and also the potential of a thrilling finish over the flatter final five or six kilometres.

The 17/2 price gives him an implied 10.5% chance over victory, but I fancy the chances of a man who already has two Le Tour wins among nine Grand Tour triumphs.

Wout Poels E/W @ 80/1

I’ve gone for an 80/1 shot previously as an each-way chance, plumping for Fred Wright on stage eight only to see Biniam Girmay cross the line first when the bunch kept the break close, with the Bahrain-Victorious rider eventually coming in a respectable eighth.

But Poels has a great chance on Thursday in my mind, and the odds don’t put me off, certainly in a Tour de France which has seen us win more than one-and-a-half times our stake overall so far.

You can read all our latest Cycling Betting Tips here.